anyone who knows about servers

[chrissatchell]

Basically i know very little about servers (told them this), and i've been set some questions to do some research on by a prospective job so here i am researching. can anyone help out with these:

prepare a template of key server features (not a clue on this one)

indicate two major end user purchasing considerations for server hardware (after sales support and reliability?)

name three server os (windows server 2001, 2003 & linux?)

give a basic example hardware spec for,
1 basic file server
2 small business server
(not a clue for this one)

any help WELL appreciated!

[dave87]

Why not have a look at the major server maufacturers websites, have a look at the specs there (that way we aren't telling you the answers) and then build up a list of what varies by what the server is designed for. Dell would probably be a good place to start.

Basic File Server is just that - basic, maybe a low end server chip or mid range desktop one, with some array of hard disks (RAID or JBOD)

Small Business Server needs some redundancy, so look for that on top of the needs of a basic file server, and look at ways to boost the performance for slightly more demanding tasks.

Hope this nudges you in the right direction.

Just out of interest, what Job Role are you going for (no need to tell us the institution, just the Job Title/Responsibilities)?

[chrissatchell]

Why not have a look at the major server maufacturers websites, have a look at the specs there (that way we aren't telling you the answers) and then build up a list of what varies by what the server is designed for. Dell would probably be a good place to start.

Basic File Server is just that - basic, maybe a low end server chip or mid range desktop one, with some array of hard disks (RAID or JBOD)

Small Business Server needs some redundancy, so look for that on top of the needs of a basic file server, and look at ways to boost the performance for slightly more demanding tasks.

Hope this nudges you in the right direction.

Just out of interest, what Job Role are you going for (no need to tell us the institution, just the Job Title/Responsibilities)?

Thanks alot for the info ill do just that. The job is actually technical merchandiser which is sorting out images for the website of a laptop company, filling in the spec's and such, but i was told i'd need to find out abit about servers for some B2B sales occasionally and i literally know very very little except what i put in brackets in the first post lol

[dave87]

Thing is, I could tell you what I'd give as answers to the questions, but that doesn't help much if you don't know how I came to them.

If you've got an element of common sense then you should be fine, its not really that difficult to deal with basic specifications, its the guys that play with the software that make my head spin.

[peterb]

You might consider exactly what the server will be serving too - a mail server would have different spec from a web server or a file server. A database server would require something else. The areas to consider would be processing power, memory and drive capacity and the trade off between cost/performance/function.

[chrissatchell]

thanks guys, its all helpful info

[chrestomanci]

Basically i know very little about servers (told them this), and i've been set some questions to do some research on by a prospective job so here i am researching. can anyone help out with these:

prepare a template of key server features (not a clue on this one)

Reliability is very important. You would normally buy a sever with a support contract from the vendor (usualy 3-5 years), so that if it stops working their engineers turn up at a few hours notice and fix it for you. When the support contract runs out you either replace the server or renew the support contract. This is where vendors like Sun score highly as their hardware is well designed and reliable and comes with excellent support as standard. Many users also buy support contracts for the server software they are using, especially complex database software.

Depending on where you will be putting the server, power consumption may be important. A more energy efficient server saves money in two ways. Firstly the direct electricity costs, and secondly in reduced air conditioning costs. You can also jam more into a small server room without overloading the AC. Also many businesses are near the limits of their available grid power so have to chose the most energy efficient servers even if they don't care about the electricity bill.

If there are many servers and they are going into a server room they need to be rackable. otherwise you end up with a big stack of boxes that might topple over, and will waste space. The standard is for 19 Inch racks that you put server in. The height of each machine is measured in "U" units. 1U = 1.75 inches. 1U, 2U and 4U are the most common sizes. A standard rack is 42U high.

Performance is obviously important, but often not as much as you might think. For example on a web server occasional delays of several seconds will hardly be noticed by a user on the other side of the world, so long as the average latency is not to high. Most people will plan to max out or nearly max out the performance of their hardware most of the time (unlike Desktop PC users).

Administrative, profiling and debugging tools are important. You don't want to pay a visit to a cold, windowless and noisy server room in it's hardened bunker if you don't have to, especially if it is on the other side of the world, near your customers, so all routine administration should be possible from the comfort of your desk, or from a laptop on the beach. You also want profiling and debugging tools, so if you hit problems like another hexus poster has you can quickly figure out the cause and fix it. Sun score very highly here with it's Dtrace profiling tool.

Finally, Backups and disaster recovery are an important consideration. It goes without saying that your data should be backed up, and stored off site in case of disaster. You also need to consider how quickly you can restore service after such a disaster, and you need a plan of what you will do if something happens. Depending on what business you are in, how much downtime will cost you, and any government regulations that apply to you you may need anything from a pre-prepared hot site ready to go in the next town to a plan based on renting some office space and buying new hardware if the worst happens. Remember that if anything happens to your site, the police or fire brigade will most likely prevent you gaining any access to your site for several days, so your disaster recovery plan has to assume that the site is inaccessible. Some disaster recovery plans also allow for the death of key staff members.

indicate two major end user purchasing considerations for server hardware (after sales support and reliability?)

Relabiltiy and Total cost of ownership. (both of which bring together a large number of factors).

name three server os (windows server 2001, 2003 & linux?)

Windows only counts as one OS, just as multiple Linux distros and versions only count once.

Other choices would include Solaris and HP-UX.

Windows is a potently controversial choice. Depending on who you a speaking to it is either the first choice for any task, or an almost laughable suggestion given windows famous unreliability and poor administrative controls. A few people might take the same view of linux, but that will be fairly rare.

give a basic example hardware spec for,
1 basic file server
2 small business server
(not a clue for this one)

My suggestion for a basic file server would be to take an old office desktop PC, that is to slow to run Vista, but not totally antiquated (fast enough to run windows 2K), and to install your favorite Linux distro and samba. Make sure the hardware is likely to be reliable. (From a reputable manufacturer (eg Dell), case & cpu temps not to high etc).

The "small business server" is so vague that it could be anything, and is totally dependent on workload. It could be anything from that old desktop PC running linux, To Something like a Sun Fire E25K (Starting price $1 million), 72CPU cores, 20 Tb Ram etc

Important factors to consider are the amount of data to be stored, the applications that will run on the server, how many users will be using it, and how reliable it needs to be.

[peterb]

Chrestomanci has covered pretty much everything - I forgot to mention things like drive configuration (although that comes under reliability) Raid1, 5, 10 (for the cost it is hardly worth considering anything less than 5, but 1 is an option) - types of drive technology - for really high speed you might consider SAS, and of course physical and information security - is it processing sensitive data - and then consider the security of the backups - and the longevity of the backup medium. Would it need multiple redundant powersupplies? UPS almost certainly a wise precaution, remote signally if something does go wrong - perhaps linked to a pager for out of hours alerts.

[gss03]

Based on recent servers I've done.....using current hardware (not 2nd hand stuff)

This is for an office of say 10 staff....
Poweredge 840
Core 2 Duo Xeon 2.13 Ghz
2 GB RAM
2 * 146GB SCSI, SAS or SATA disks configured in a RAID 1 array (for resilience)
Dat72 tape drive for backup if data <20GB
LTO2 if more (I've never dabbled really with DLT or AIT)
basic mouse, keyboard and monitor.
MS Small business server 2003 R2 + CALs (purchased through MS Open licencing)

For an office of say 50 staff (my current project :-) )

Dell Poweredge 2900
Dual Quad Core 2.5Ghz
4 * 400GB SAS disks configured into 2 * RAID 1 arrays
LTO3 tape drive (400/800 GB backup drive)
4 GB RAM
MS Small Business server 2003 + *lots* of CALs
basic mouse, keyboard and monitor.
3 year NBD Gold Warranty from Dell (4 hour onsite repair)


Different Server OS's

* Microsoft Windows Small Business server 2003 R2
* Windows Server Standard Edition 2003 R2
* Windows Server Enterprise Edition 2003 R2
* Windows Server Web Edition
* Linux and all it's flavours

[chrestomanci]

Chrestomanci has covered pretty much everything

Thanks.

I forgot to mention things like drive configuration (although that comes under reliability) Raid1, 5, 10 (for the cost it is hardly worth considering anything less than 5, but 1 is an option) - types of drive technology - for really high speed you might consider SAS, and of course physical and information security - is it processing sensitive data - and then consider the security of the backups - and the longevity of the backup medium. Would it need multiple redundant powersupplies? UPS almost certainly a wise precaution,

Good point, I missed that. Raid, (Redundant discs), and Redundant power supplies fall under the heading of fault tolerance. Another example would include ECC memory (that detects and sometimes corrects single bit errors due to background radioactivity). Some esoteric hardware allow memory modules, and even CPUs to be hot swapped while the server is running.

An alternative idea is to make the whole server fault tolerant by having multiple virtual servers running on redundant hardware. If one physical (hardware) server starts to show problems or need maintenance, then the virtual server(s) running on it can be migrated to other hardware without stopping them, or any need for the OS or software running on the virtual server to know about it. This can also be done for load balancing. For example if your web server at a hosting center gets slashdotted, then the hosting service might temporarily move it to more powerful hardware. Alternatively, you might consolidate multiple virtual servers on a single unit of hardware during off peak hours to save electricity, and then move them back to individual machines during peak hours when maximum performance is needed.

Linux has had this kind of thing for years with user mode Linux, where Linux runs both the host and the virtual guests (this is why you can find very cheap Linux co-lo hosting). Recent advances allow linux to host other operating systems as well. (I am using the Linux KVM system to run windows XP as a guest on my Linux box). Solaris has also had visualization support for a long time, and the big daddy of them all, IBM can replace thousands of normal servers with one of their high end boxes. Under windows the situation is more difficult. The visualization software is there, but because of complex licensing rules, there is much less scope for innovative solutions.

Another way of making servers redundant is via clustering. You setup the same services on multiple servers, and then arrange it so that if one stops working the other takes it's place very quickly. Some systems use a load balancer so that requests from clients are balanced between the two (unless one goes wrong, in which case the other takes the full load)

remote signally if something does go wrong - perhaps linked to a pager for out of hours alerts.

Not a bad idea, but it is better to know in advance that something might go wrong. I have also heard comic stories about system administrators who configured all their servers to page them if they rebooted unexpectedly. Then there was a power cut, hundreds of servers rebooted, and the pager went bananas.

[Moby-Dick]

another vote for knowing a little about virtualisation technologies - I'm putting in quite a few multi node ESX farms that will host 50+ guests on them .

[chrissatchell]

wow, chrestomanci, i owe you big time, thats some awesome info, just about to pop out but ill read that when i get back, thanks again!

[peterb]

Remember its horses for courses - and there is almost everything here from SOHO to a major datacentre installation (we haven't mentioned backup generators though or alternative national grid feeders) so it all comes down to balancing requirement and budget. Establish those and you then have the boundaries within which you can specify the solution(s).

[chrissatchell]

Remember its horses for courses - and there is almost everything here from SOHO to a major datacentre installation (we haven't mentioned backup generators though or alternative national grid feeders) so it all comes down to balancing requirement and budget. Establish those and you then have the boundaries within which you can specify the solution(s).

yeh definately, im sure ill pick up on that when doing the job (if i get it)

[chrissatchell]

i got the job turns out i need to know nothing about servers but they wanted to take me outta my comfort zone....b*stards lol. thanks all! its good to have knowledge like that regardless.

[peterb]

Congratulations - we will pm our invoices for 10&#37; of your first years salary later!!

But yes - you never know when that sort of knowledge comes in usefu!! (If only when eyeing up some specs that an enthusiastic salesman is trying to sell to you!)